1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a computer system and, more particularly, to a computer system capable of easily seating auxiliary equipment, such as a floppy disc drive, a CD-ROM drive or a hard disc drive, in the bay of a chassis without using any separate fixing means, such as set screws.
2. Background Art
The development of an information-oriented society has resulted in increasing reliance by society on computer systems to collect and analyze data. This increasing reliance on computer systems has led to the continuous improvement of the hardware used with computer systems and to the further development of multi-functional computer systems.
One technique used to increase the usefulness of computers has been the use of removable hard disk drives. An advantage of removable hard disk drives is that larger amounts of data can be transferred from one computer system to another. The technology used for removable disk drives is also useful for more permanently attached drives, such as floppy disk drives or compact disk read only memory drives.
One method of attaching disk drives or other peripherals to a computer chassis is to attach braces onto each side of the peripheral using fasteners. Typically these braces have elastic portions or projections on the side that result in a firm fit between the peripheral and the bay in the computer housing. In addition, the side braces may have an additional elastic member contacting the side of the peripheral device for use in the case of failure of one of the fasteners. One example of this method is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,466 to Remise entitled Mounting Device for Detachably Mounting a Plurality of Computer Peripherals.
Another method of attaching peripherals to computer housings is to slide the peripheral, such as a hard disk drive, in through the front of the bay to secure the peripheral to the computer system. Some techniques for slidably mounting a peripheral device into a computer system are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,519 to Sheppard entitled Housing with Latch and Ejection Mechanism Air Portable Hard Disk Drive, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,123,721 to Seo entitled Device for Securing Peripheral Equipment of Computer.
The above described methods of attaching portable disk drives have the disadvantages of requiring fasteners to be inserted into the peripheral, and of requiring the peripherals in special housings to be compatible with the bracketing method. In addition, the design of the attachment mechanism is complicated, thus requiring more assembly time.
To eliminate some of the assembly time required to mount a peripheral into a computer system, fastenerless mounting systems have been developed. One fastenerless mounting system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,293 to McAnally entitled Screwless Hard Disk Drive Mounting in a Computer System with a Chassis via a First Bracket Rigidly Mounted to the Chassis and a Second Bracket Movably Mounted to the Chassis. Mc Ally '293 mentions a bracket system that secures a hard disk drive to a dual leaf spring and bracket combination. The bracket requires that a user position a hard drive in a computer housing and then place a brace over one side of the hard drive.
The peripheral, or disk drive, mounting systems of the contemporary art do not provide a peripheral mounting system that allows a user to slide a peripheral into position, that is free from fasteners, and that does not require access to a side of the peripheral device for engaging the peripheral with the computer system. As such, I believe that it may be possible to improve on the prior art by providing a peripheral mounting system that allows a user to slide a peripheral into position, that is free from fasteners, that does require a large number of components, that is easy to install, that does not require access to a side of the peripheral device for engaging the peripheral with the computer system, that can be inserted and released through the front of the peripheral bay, and that is simpler for consumers to use.